Haunted Farm

I can’t even begin to describe how this school has changed me. It’s a bit of a push/pull relationship. Sometimes i love it, other times not so much. There have been moments where I’ve seriously considered leaving but I don’t think I’d actually go through with it. Tonight, I went to a haunted farm complete with a corn maze, tractor, and haunted house. It was nice. It was nice getting off campus, seeing real, live people. That sounds weird but all of my friends could oddly agree to the sentiment. We live in zombie-town, land of the sleep deprived. When students leave campus, it’s referred to as “popping the bubble” because, we effectively live in bubble.

Not that I paid much attention to the news before, but I hear even less about the world now. Sometimes it’s easy to forget that the world doesn’t consist of 4 large buildings, teenagers, and a few supervising adults because that’s all I see on a daily basis. There are people who don’t understand the school/campus/teacher oriented references or use the fad words. So, yes it was nice hitting up the haunted farm full of their local middle school kids. Breaking routine. We all made  an agreement not to talk about schoolwork while we were there.

Pokemon

A couple of days ago I dressed up as Pikachu, and ran around the school during happy half while my friend was dressed as Ash, throwing pokeballs at me. There was also the theme song playing in the background. I kept my hood on the whole time so I couldn’t see, but apparently there was a crowd of people chasing me at some point. People kept grabbing me and I’d run into some random dude’s arms because they were trying to catch me.

Ahhh, now it’s the weekend. I’ll study, relax, and grab some chai tea off campus with my friends later. How are you guys doing? I hope you’re having a fabulous weekend!

School: Life at Math and Science

General Life Update

I’ve been having a lot of fun at my new school. It really is a very different experience living with your best friends. I go outside of my hallway and there are all of my classmates, just chillin’. At the same time, I’m working on completely eliminating, or at least lowering, my stress levels. The courses are rigorous and really require you to think and study. At my old school I barely ever studied and got straight A’s. Different story at SSM.

My Favorite Class

Japanese. Because I can just make up creative/weird stories in my head all day and it counts as work or something.

Example: The adjective dangerous in Japanese is ‘abunai.’

I picture Aladdin and Abu during the night in the sandy and egyptian-esque background. Abu running to go into a pyramid while Aladdin shouts “Abu! Abu! It’s dangerous at night!”

Plus, I’m interested in moving to Japan one day so that helps. At first I was failing the class, hardcore. I probably had a like a 7%. Suwa sensei, my teacher, teaches the class in entirely japanese. Eh, me no comphrende. So, erm, that means I didn’t understand directions and I didn’t know when there were tests. Err, what was homework again? After a couple of weeks I got over the learning curve, caught up with the class, and learned the common phrases and vocabulary my teacher uses. Now, I’m doing really well in the course. The grade is an ‘A’ though I feel like Japanese is a living, breathing thing, not something to grade. Who cares if you ace a language course if you can’t actually apply it? Someone may be able to conjugate verbs on paper but forget what they’ve learned and sound like an unnatural robot in front of a native speaker. But I think most of my classmates don’t plan on applying it anyway…

Dorms

Unlike some halls, mine is super close. I love everybody on greynolds. I visited my old highschool yesterday and it didn’t evoke a good emotional response. I kinda just started thinking about all of the people and somewhat traumatizing memories there. I also realized that I didn’t joke around nearly as much as I do at my new school. There are many less social inhibitions at my new school so I’m perpetually acting like a spazz. And the great thing is, people join me there! And accept me. I just got weird looks at my old highschool. It’s wonderful being a part of a close knit community.

Food

I’m much less picky about what I eat, now that I live in a dormitory. But, I do generally eat as healthily as I can. I snack and eat conventional junky foods when I bum off of my friends. We all share food on my hall. I’m the type of student who eats organic ramen with kimchi and seaweed… I also eat a lot of fruit if I’ve stocked up. For lunch and dinner I’ll usually go to the PFM (cafeteria). Their food is usually a hit or a miss, it’s not too bad, especially for free food.

Skin

About a month in I realized that the lack of sleep and stress was really taking a toll on my skin. At home I could get away with just splashing my face with lukewarm water in the morning. I ordered an organic facial scrub and moisturizer. I also make sure to cleanse my face with a towel and hot water in the morning to get off any oil and dirt that accumulated during the night. Just adding these couple of things made a huge difference.

Time

It’s very valuable. My days can sometimes be filled to the brim with activities and homework. In my free time I often take naps, or release. My school is also known as zombieland because of how little people sleep there. I’ve heard that some people regularly pull all nighters… icky. I haven’t done that yet… I’ve already had trouble keeping up and I have easy schedule if you were compare mine to a genius senior’s. They always go easy on juniors during the first trimester… Oh, and yes, my school goes by trimesters, not semesters. Just another way for us to complete more intense work in a shorter time period.

But I also feel like the school expects us to stay up really late and doesn’t make it any easier for us to go to sleep earlier. You can’t sleep any earlier than 10:30 pm unless you go to the lobby and sign early check. Check is when students sign a sheet on hall to basically tell the school hey I’m here.

Only 1/3 of applicants get in… I know some former classmates of mine who were really crushed when they weren’t accepted. I’ve read accounts of hopefuls who list all of their accomplishments and ask people what their chances are of getting in. The school is not all butterflies, rainbows, and unicorns as it may seem. People drop out at the beginning and throughout the year because they don’t feel it’s for them. Sometimes students are downright miserable from the workload. The school also does expel a good number of students… in my opinion, sometimes unfairly.

All in all, I’m glad I’ve had this opportunity and I love my friends. The adults aren’t watching us like hawks and I have a lot of fun adventures.

Oh yeah, and radical turtle will look the same for a while actually..

Boarding School: Down and Dirty Recap

Here’s a brief recap of my time spent at my new school thus far. Enjoy ~

Week 1:

It’s time to PARRRTAYYY!

Then, classes start.

What the hell are people saying? Where is everything?

Our school has a special language of TLAs – three letter acronyms. It’s not a cafeteria, no, it’s the PFM (professional food management). Let’s go down to the PEC (physical education center).

Argh argh argh I’m so lost. Argh argh argh, I slept through a class. Hur hur hur (cry-i noises) so many classes at so many different times everyday. HOW DO I DISPENSE SOAP?

Dawwww, thank you senior brother for the gift.

Fun Fact: My school was an abandoned hospital. What does that mean? The school is built a little oddly and we have lots of spooky ghost stories. Plus, I live in the morgue. The most infamous of the ghost stories? A nurse went through the underground Hill tunnel and was never seen again. Apparently, you can still hear her heels clicking at night. It was featured on some ghost stories type tv show.

Week 2:

EARTHQUAKE

Then FIRE – (lol, my roommate set a toaster oven on fire in the mini kitchen of a hall above us. we were all chillin, just making omelets…)

HURRICANNNE

All the teachers are actually giving us work now… Bonding with my hallmates. Man, I love my hallmates.

Fun Fact: Every Sunday – Thursday night we have “Happy Half.” A good chunk of students congregate in the middle of the school, near the swings (which 2 of my hallmates got it to stop squeaking! so appreciative) to talk and have fun from 10 pm- 10:25 pm. At 10:30 we have ‘check’ where we have to be on hall and sign in.

Week 3:

TORNADO

MORE SCHOOL WORK

I turn my bed, a bottom bunk, into a cozy enclave since my roommate stays up studying. Man, I so… tired… Look! I have free time. Must take…. a nap…. zzz….

I have no food left! I must rely on the PFM for my nutritional needs.

Extended weekend – time to visit home! Eh, I sleep and do practically nothing with my time. I buy lots of food too.

Fun Fact: My school mascot is a unicorn.

Week 4:

Picture day! More hall activities. More fun with all of my friends. More work. More Chemistry, Intermediate Japanese, American Studies, and Precalculus. College Eve, wherein I sign up for the airforce with a ‘pen name’ for a snowcone.  My senior convinces me to leave campus without signing out.

Fun Fact: My school is composed of only juniors and seniors. That means that each class only knows each other for one year. This makes it harder to keep up certain SSM culture/clubs and make long term changes.

Me, a junior, would call someone who has just graduated the past school year a “grand senior.” The “grand senior” was my senior’s senior (while they were a junior). Get it? Some who graduated 2 years ago would be a “grand grand senior.” This is how we refer to past generations.

Junior (me) –> Senior –> Grand Senior –> Grand Grand Senior –> etc…

Week 5 (current):

I go on a carb free diet with 3 of my hallmates. I feel much cleaner and lighter. Good BMs. There’s a cookout tonight! for my building. Not to mention, it’s friday friday gotta get down on friday….

Fun Fact: People would think my school is entirely comprised of nerds, which it is to an extent, but our school also excels in athletics. The boys soccer team is went to Nationals last year. The girls tennis team wins state championship.

Also, the people here are kind with interesting back stories.  Scattered among us are some superstar geniuses.

The school is somewhat like a college yet retains some odd highschool-y points since we’re still minors. I live on a closed campus so to get into any building in the school I have to have a fob. It’s a plastic thingy majiger that you have to swipe to open doors. We call it a fob, but no, it doesn’t mean FOB. I received a plain, navy blue fob without a design from a previous student so I painted it with nail polish. If it already has a design, you just paint over it. I wear my fob as a necklace.

Generally, school is very fun and busy. When I smile at people and say hi in the hallway, a warm euphoria spreads on my face and through my chest because I’m genuinely happy to see them =)